Exploring Non-English Department Students' Difficulties in Speaking English

Abstract

Speaking ability is seen as the most important skill for students, but in reality there
are still many students who do not master speaking, especially students who have difficulty
understanding spoken English words and phrases. the difficulties faced by students are
influenced by non-linguistic and linguistic factors. The purpose of this study is to identify the
non-linguistic and linguistic elements that influence difficulty speaking English. This study is a
qualitative research using descriptive case studies. The participants in this study were 4th and
6th semester students of Economics education at Universitas Pancasakti Tegal. A questionnaire
was used to obtain the data. The questionnaire consists of 40 items covering 8 categories. The
results found that the causes of difficulty in speaking which were influenced by non-linguistic
factors were fear of being wrong (43%) agreed and (40%) strongly agreed, shy (40%) agreed
and (37%) strongly agreed, anxiety (46%) agreed and strongly agreed (31%), lack of confidence
(46%) agreed agreed and (26%) strongly agreed, lack of motivation (46%) agreed and (26%)
strongly disagreed which was a minor cause they experienced in learning to speak English. On
linguistic factors it was found that lack of vocabulary (40%) agree and (26%) strongly agree and
lack of mastery of grammar (40%) agree and (34%) strongly agree, and pronunciation 46%
agree and 20% strongly agree.